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I don’t want this blog to be a repository of my gripes. However, even something as basic as getting a decent internet connection is so fraught with frustrating wrangling that one cannot help but compare how shitty services are in the Philippines and this is why we can’t ever aspire for better things as we are getting left behind by our Southeast Asian neighbors.

Anyway, I was gonna write/gripe/complain about internet services. Just a background: I live in a small town in Cavite, where the only service available was with Smart. We subsribed to a Canopy internet connection. It was slow and shitty, but one gets used to it. Years later, Smart merged with PLDT and our Canopy connetion was upgraded without my consent to PLDT Ultera, which is an LTE connection. Now, it was (a bit) faster but it came with a very unpalatable catch: there is a 30-gigabyte data cap. I’d understand if it were for mobile data, but home wi-fi? It’s ridiculous and mind-blowing. Okay, not so much because you can top it up for a pretty penny, but you can only do it twice every billing cycle, for a grand maximum of 50 gb per month. Once you use it up, maybe you’ll be better off imagining like it’s the early 90s and there is no internet and the blackouts stretch for hours every night. Anyway, believe me, I’ve come to that point where I was totally cut off because the quota was maxed out and due to my house’s location in the boondocks, I couldn’t even use mobile data. I called customer service to ask if I can somehow get connected again and they said no, I have to wait for the next billing cycle.

And then all of a sudden the Canopy connection didn’t seem so bad anymore.

Anyway, a family with multiple mobile devices and a Netflix subscription cannot live on 50gb alone. Even by myself I cannot do that. So I opted to upgrade to another subscription, Plan 1299 which comes with a landline and no data caps. I go home to the Philippines usually only one to three weeks at a time, and I get so lazy going anywhere, so I took advantage of PLDT’s online application system. I filled up the forms, uploaded the necessary documents, and even left money in case (wishful thinking) the phone and new connection gets installed. After all, they said they’ll get back to me in a few days, maximum a week. That was December 27, 2016. At midnight, March 28, 2017, after several emails asking for updates, a representative got back to me writing that due to prolonged process or aging for more than 30 days (are they talking about cheese???),my application had been cancelled and that I should just apply again. What the fuck, really, it took them three months and another nagging email from me this morning to tell me that?

Okay, I just wrote another grumpy email in response just now (foregoing the expletives). The thing is, I have no choice. I can get myself red in the face complaining but in the end, I am a trapped customer. The duopoly of PLDT-Smart and Globe has ensured that me and my ilk are well and truly fucked and there is nothing we can do about it because they got rid of all the competition. I have no choice but to apply again. And perhaps when they feel like it, make me wait and tell me to fuck off months later.

In terms of reliable internet connection, anywhere else is better. Indonesia has many companies offering the same service that it is very easy to just switch to another provider if you are dissatisfied with the one you have currently. I have a 4G subscription with Indosat: a 5GB mobile data package for 30 days that costs me less than the equivalent of PhP 200. For comparison, in the Philippines I use Globe GoSakto50 for 1GB and it lasts only three days…. I don’t even get to use it all up because the connection is very often spotty that something like ordering a Grab or watching a video on YouTube without it buffering is near impossible. And then there are no such things as two-year locked in contracts for home connections in Indonesia. Grass is greener on the other side, but in this case it is very true. The lack of a decent internet connection is a source of immense frustration when I come home, among other things lol. It sucks so much.

The past few weeks I’ve been getting unsolicited invitations from people I do not know on Skype. They always start the same way:

What kind of retard copies and pastes “Enter a message to introduce yourself…..”? I shudder to think that it came from an actual person and not a bot. Lol. Anyway, I’ve been blocking these requests but they keep popping up. Different names but same stupid pick-up. I don’t even bother to find out what kind of scam this is…. Unfortunately I have no time for that kind of nonsense.

Been on 8tracks since 2011… and it’s been a nice experience. Until earlier this week, that is, when they changed their international streaming policies. The mobile phone apps are pretty useless, and when using a browser, it redirects to YouTube, which might not have the same version or sound quality in the originally uploaded playlist. Also, rarer or non-mainstream tracks might not be on YouTube at all.

8tracks was great for discovering music that I wouldn’t have heard any other way. And it was also where I uploaded carefully thought of playlists to share that I do not even have on my music player. So yeah, it’s such a shame that I won’t be able to enjoy listening in anymore just because I live outside North America. So much for the Internet.

I’m gonna start listing down the tracks on my playlists and then build them onto my music player. When that is done, I’m gonna delete them all. Sorry, guys, but I don’t see the point of keeping it there when I get nothing back (the privilege of listening to other people’s playlists).

Last Friday we were able to clock out by noon, a couple of hours after the Chinese New Year program. I went with three other coworkers to a mall, and I decided to take the chance to apply for a postpaid mobile data account with Telkomsel. My other coworker got hers, but I wasn’t as lucky as they wanted an additional document. Anyway, I didn’t feel so bad about it because 1) my prepaid Telkomsel data subscription sucked and I was doubtful about it improving just because it’s postpaid; 2) 4G is still on an ‘trial phase’ at my current location in Central Java; 3) I was in a conundrum about getting a new number: if I wanted to upgrade my current mobile number to postpaid, it cannot be downgraded to prepaid, so I was considering getting a new number to try it out first. My phone is dual SIM so it was no issue.

Them telling me to return a different day with a domicili made me decide to just go a different route. So I went to a shop a few steps away and bought a new SIM card with a different network provider. It was not so bad: a total of 10GB, more than half of it via their 4G network, for less than 90k IDR. Not so bad at all.

And then today, when I checked my mail, I found out that I could actually access Netflix again. When Netflix rolled out their international subscriptions, I signed up immediately. But then a week later Telkom Indonesia promptly blocked it because they wanted Netflix to follow local censorship laws. I couldn’t even access their website to cancel my subscription. But then now there is no need to… because the new SIM I bought for data is not a subsidiary of Telkom Indonesia. Yaaaaz. I feel a little silly because I should have figured it out a long time ago. Lol.

It’s a long weekend because of the Chinese New Year, though I do need to get work done. But I am just happy that I can do it with Making a Murderer in the background.

No Internet, no screen grab. This is what my desktop looks like. Still a bit cluttered. I love this toe wallpaper. Kashikura Takashi is awesome. I should stop writing in clipped, disjointed sentences.

:<

I was just about to upload Moteki c7 for qc when my internets crapped out on me. It's not back on yet. I guess I should make use of the time to read. (Didn't I post before that I couldn't put The Marriage Plot down? Turns out I could.) Or maybe do real-life work. (Ugh. Weekends didn't use to be so hectic! Right? Right.) Monday's almost here. That's the cue for that Boomtown Rats song.

Had the modem installed this afternoon. I was in the middle of my nap when the technician came. My flatmate talked to the guy. I was too out of it to check the connection. Well, it keeps crapping out on me, especially when I try to leech stuff over IRC. Ugh. Gonna have to contact them soon.

Intended to burn the midnight oil finishing up with paperwork. But then, too lazy. =_=